34 



ISLAND LIFE. 



[part I. 



latitude as Germany. We find that there are forty-four ter- 

 restrial species (omitting the bats, the seals, and other marine 

 animals), and of these no less than twenty-six are identical with 

 European species, and twelve or thirteen more are closely allied 

 representatives, leaving only five or six which are peculiarly 

 Asiatic. We can hardly have a more convincing proof of the 

 essential oneness of the mammalia of Europe and Northern 

 Asia. 



In Northern Africa we do not find so many European species 

 (though even here they are very numerous) because a con- 

 siderable number of West Asiatic and desert forms occur. 

 Having, however, shown that Europe and Western Asia have 

 almost identical animals, we may treat all these as really 

 European, and we shall then be able to compare the quadrupeds 

 of North Africa with those of Europe and West Asia. Taking 

 those of Algeria as the best known, we find that there are 

 thirty-three species identical with those of Europe and West 

 Asia, while twenty-four more, though distinct, are closely allied, 

 belonging to the same genera; thus making a total of fifty- 

 seven of European type. On the other hand, we have seven 

 species which are either identical with species of tropical Africa 

 or allied to them, and six more which are especially characteristic 

 of the African and Asiatic deserts which form a kind of neutral 

 zone between the temperate and tropical regions. If now we 

 consider that Algeria and the adjacent countries bordering the 

 Mediterranean form part of Africa, while they are separated from 

 Europe by a wide sea and are only connected with Asia by. a 

 narrow isthmus, we cannot but feel surprised at the wonderful 

 preponderance of the European and West Asiatic elements in 

 the mammalia which inhabit the district. 



The Range of British Birds. — As it is very important that no 

 doubt should exist as to the limits of the zoological region of 

 which Europe forms a part, we will now examine the birds, in 

 order to see how far they agree in their distribution with the 

 mammalia. Of late years great attention has been paid to the 

 distribution of European and Asiatic birds, many ornithologists 

 having travelled in North Africa, in Palestine, in Asia Minor, in 

 Persia, in Siberia, in Mongolia, and in China ; so that we are now 



